For the last leg of our summer holiday, we traveled down to Hale, Michigan, to stay with my dad.
We try to do this every summer. My dad has an RV on his property, which helps us feel like we’re camping out, and we join my sister and other family members for a big get-together over the long summer weekend.
For the first part of our vacation, it was just us five – driving around Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula, going hiking, venturing out to see new places. Now, it was a big, noisy crowd of family. A capstone on our two-week getaway.
We went swimming and kayaking in the Rifle River Recreation Area, on a remote, wild lake. We grabbed the paddle board and paddled around Long Lake.
It was one of those #PureMichigan settings – the ideal version of what a vacation should be.
The sad part was that we’d be heading home after this was over.
Our usual summer holiday includes sticking to one spot, with a few exceptions.
This year, after we left Door County, we wandered around the Upper Peninsula of Michigan for a week – first in Ironwood, then in Escanaba.
It was a vacation spent living out of our suitcases, constantly on the go.
First, Ironwood. We picked this little city because of its proximity to the Porcupine Mountains, an ancient volcano system weathered down to our present modest range of basalt and conglomerate.
During our first full day in Ironwood, we woke up for sunrise over the Lake of the Clouds.
There’s nothing the kids love more than to wake up at 3 AM to go hiking in the woods – except for just about anything else. But the view? Totally worth it.
After a bit more hiking down to the lake, we stopped by the Lake Superior shore to grab lunch and look at the rocks along the beach.
I took just a few minutes to stop along the road, on the way back, to grab shots of the local businesses.
Our cabin sat alongside the Black River, which empties out into Lake Superior. Along the way, you can hike down to a series of waterfalls along the river.
What I loved about this section of our trip was the hiking. We didn’t get a lot of forest bathing in Wisconsin, but here we had woods a-plenty, and it was good for all of us to hear nothing but birds and the strong river running.
For these hiking trips, the Canon EOS M6 – with its portability and light weight – was perfect: small and capable.
After a few days in Ironwood, we drove down to Escanaba, Michigan, along Lake Michigan, for a different view of the Great Lakes. Here, we found a beach on Sand Island that was great for swimming and sunbathing.
We also explored a bit of downtown Escanaba and a dam that sat outside our cabin on the Escanaba River.
That was it for the Upper Peninsula portion of the trip. From here, we headed south across the Mackinac Bridge to Hale, Michigan, to meet up with my family and finish up our summer vacation.
It’s time again to return to Door County, Wisconsin.
This year, we kept things super simple: fewer trips up and down the peninsula, more time on the lake, more quality time together.
Apart from the no-see-ums, which made our kids look like they had chicken pox, we accomplished our goal.
Before we left, I told my wife I was debating whether to take my Canon 5D classic or the go-to travel camera, the Canon EOS M6. One was an ol’-reliable DSLR, the other was the light and svelte mirrorless option.
“Why don’t you just take both?” she said.
Take both?
I hadn’t thought of that. The M6 was my default travel option, but I knew the Canon 5D would help me capture those special moments down by the water.
I also took it on our hike through Potawatomi State Park, where we climbed the observation tower to look over Green Bay:
We stuck around Sturgeon Bay for a week, then loaded up the car for the second week of summer holiday in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
As always, Door County felt like home away from home.
